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Bartz. Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Carol Bartz had a lot of excuses and a lot of salty language, but in the end, she didn't have what it took to fix Yahoo. Bartz is exiting the building after two and a half years running the internet conglomerate.

Yahoo announced Tuesday evening that the board of directors had removed Bartz and appointed CFO Tim Morse to replace her on an interim basis until a permanent successor can be found.

None of these rationales has made any kind of lasting impression on Wall Street. Yahoo shares closed at $12.91 today, about their level in January 2009, when Bartz, a former CEO of Autodesk and executive at 3M and Sun Microsystems, took over. In recent weeks, a spate of speculation about how Yahoo's weak price had made it once again a target for a private equity takeover-and-breakup led to renewed calls for her to be replaced. (In July, Forbes contributor Eric Jackson offered this eight-point analysis of Bartz's failings.)

Now the guessing game turns to who will replace her. Obvious candidates include Ross Levinsohn, who took over Yahoo's Americas business last October; Jonathan Miller, the News Corp. executive who earlier ran AOL; and even Peter Chernin, the former president of News Corp., who has reportedly explored the idea of a PE-backed bid for Yahoo in the past.

In after-hours trading, Yahoo shares spiked 6.3% to $13.72 on the news.